David: "So, we became the Originals." Nigel: "Right." David: "And, uh, we had to change our name, actually." Nigel: "Well, there was another group, in the east end, called the Originals and we had to rename ourselves." David: "the New Originals." Nigel: "the New Originals." David: "Yeah." Nigel: "And they became..." David: "...the Regulars. They changed their name back to the Regulars. And we thought we could go back to the Originals, but what's the point?"

How about "Mass movements-R-us"? This tale reminds me of a Tale From the Arabian Knights in which the loving lady learned that assassins had marked the door in Baghdad where her lover was to stay the night with a chalk X. She could not warn him because she did not know where he was staying. What to do? Easy, she went out and marked every door in Baghdad with a chalk X. There are now so many Tea Party groups that the real one is safe from being recognised.

Women and blacks are supposed to be liberal, vote for Democrats, because the Democrats will make sure that the government is looking out for them, solving their problems, making sure they have health care and qualify for a mortgage even when they don't, can get welfare and food stamps, etc. Women's issues and black issues are Democrat issues and those demographics are Democrat demographics.

But it's something that can't be actually spoken isn't it.

Not even to point out how terribly wrong this is, how essentially insulting that this group or that group, as a group, needs government to take care of them. And then people stand up and say, "Smaller government!" or pay your own way or pay your own mortgage or pay your own bills, and maybe the government ought not encourage irresponsiblity and maybe the government ought to stop trying to micro manage everything and maybe, on top of that, not spend so much of our hard earned money and that's a "white" thing?

If it's a "white" thing then certainly, logically, getting the government to confiscate other people's money (who have too much) and pass it around to people who can't quite take care of themselves is a non-white thing.

i thought the controversy was too stupid for words. williams wrote a satire. his use of the term "colored" satired the very name of the NAACP, and he argued in short that the NAACP was advocating a tyranny over our lives akin to slavery. over the top? yes. but racist? not at all. Its akin to citing "A modest proposal" for the prospect that John Swift felt that human flesh was delicious.

And i have defended it when the shoe was on the other foot. Al Franken had a parody of a sexual encounter between Gingrich, if memory serves and an asian hooker. The depiction of the hooker was offensive and borrowed from every ugly stereotype that asian american women have to struggle against. But while i felt franken's satire wasn't really funny, and i wouldn't have made the choices he did, i didn't condemn him as racist over it.

My husband and I enjoy making bumper stickers. We were especially proud of one that said "Tea Party Patriot" in the "American Text" font and it had a picture of an outline of a Minute Man on it. People loved it, too, and they would buy it.

Then Tea Party Patriots, Inc., told Zazzle to take down my stuff and everyone else's who had the words "Tea Party" and "Patriot" together.

Argh. Now I'm just a boring old Patriot or something. I''m still a member of my local Tea Party, but I felt like giving it up after that.

Synova - Have you read Mark William's "satire." The little paragraph included in the linked article is probably the least offensive part of the entire thing. The "National Tea Party Federation" is expelling him and his group because he is providing the "proof" for the NAACP claim of "elements of racism in the Tea Party" at the worst possible time.

I'll quote the letter in it's entirety for those too lazy to look it up:

Dear Mr. Lincoln

We Coloreds have taken a vote and decided that we don't cotton to that whole emancipation thing. Freedom means having to work for real, think for ourselves, and take consequences along with the rewards. That is just far too much to ask of us Colored People and we demand that it stop!

In fact we held a big meeting and took a vote in Kansas City this week. We voted to condemn a political revival of that old abolitionist spirit called the 'tea party movement'.

The tea party position to "end the bailouts" for example is just silly. Bailouts are just big money welfare and isn't that what we want all Coloreds to strive for? What kind of racist would want to end big money welfare? What they need to do is start handing the bail outs directly to us coloreds! Of course, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is the only responsible party that should be granted the right to disperse the funds.

And the ridiculous idea of "reduce[ing] the size and intrusiveness of government." What kind of massa would ever not want to control my life? As Coloreds we must have somebody care for us otherwise we would be on our own, have to think for ourselves and make decisions!

The racist tea parties also demand that the government "stop the out of control spending." Again, they directly target coloreds. That means we Coloreds would have to compete for jobs like everybody else and that is just not right.

Perhaps the most racist point of all in the tea parties is their demand that government "stop raising our taxes." That is outrageous! How will we coloreds ever get a wide screen TV in every room if non-coloreds get to keep what they earn? Totally racist! The tea party expects coloreds to be productive members of society?

Mr. Lincoln, you were the greatest racist ever. We had a great gig. Three squares, room and board, all our decisions made by the massa in the house. Please repeal the 13th and 14th Amendments and let us get back to where we belong.

Sincerely

Precious Ben Jealous, Tom's NephewNAACP Head Colored Person"

Ha Ha! Hilarious satire! This is the same guy who also has repeatedly stated that Obama is an "Indonesian Muslim and Welfare Thug."

My grandmother always served tea in a glass, or a gless as she put it. Tea is over for me because I was raised on a gless tea with a slice of her sponge cake in the kitchen of her ancient apartment on the first floor of the six story 1920's apartment house with the fifteen coats of white enamel paint on the walls and the whole weight of the building pressing down on us and the one window looking out on an inner courtyard with a Brooklyn tree of heaven straining for what light managed to reach it. Compared to that what do fancy shmancy teas have to offer me?

A lot of my anti-Tea Party friends will be in mourning with this news. All weekend long, I was getting messages from them, saying in effect, "See? I told you the tea party was just a bunch of racists!" This is not good news for them, although I'm sure if they think about it, it's pretty easy to spin. Look for articles that say, "The Tea Party ousted Mark Williams not for being a racist, but for being honest about feelings that most tea party members share but are politically incorrect..." You'll get Michael Kinsley's definition of a gaffe, and lots of references to dog whistles.

I'll quote the letter in it's entirety for those too lazy to look it up:

It really is pretty sick. The NAACP was playing politics with its allegation of racism against the tea party, but this idiot Williams managed to flip the story beautifully. What a dick.

What I told friends was that the tea parties, plural, were more like flash-mobs that got very big, rather than a normal political organization. It's hard to fire a self-appointed spokesperson, which Williams clearly was.

John - I agree with both your posts. I just think the NAACP got a lot of sh*t from people who acted like "Oh my God! They called all the Tea Partiers racist!!!" When in truth, they condemned "elements of the Tea Party" that are racist.

Certainly, there are probably some, if not many, members of the NAACP who may believe the former. However, Mark Williams has done his best to prove that the statement the NAACP actually made was, in fact, very true. And this isn't some fringe Northern Iowa Tea Party group putting up a billboard comparing Obama to Hitler. This is one of the more well-known, national groups, with speakers on the last tour including Sarah Palin (for two events), Joe The Plumber (5 events), Ann Coulter (1 event) and Andrew Breitbart (1 event)

Obviously, not saying those people are racist scum like Williams. OK, maybe Coulter :)

He has done exactly what the NAACP was probably hoping for. Get at least one high profile Tea Partier so pissed off that he can't help but show his racist side. Well done, Mr. Williams.

Oh, wait, I can’t. because they have refused to even release it to the public. So its kind of hard to claim we are misrepresenting their position.

Second, they don’t care about the racists they associate with. Go to big government right now, and you will hear about the NAACP listening to a former Clinton official say that she didn’t help a white farmer as much as she could have, because he was white and she was black. They don’t denounce the black panthers, even though they have been racist toward other black people. They don’t denounce the Nation of Islam’s racist idiocy (their actual religion is to islam what Mormonism is to Christianity, only add in a little extra crazy).

As for Williams its not a funny satire, but it’s a satire. So taking what he said literally is, well, stupid.

I don’t blame some tea party groups for throwing him under the bus. Clearly in this time no one is interested in nuances like “is satire.” But I won’t say its right or fair.

"He has done exactly what the NAACP was probably hoping for. Get at least one high profile Tea Partier so pissed off that he can't help but show his racist side. Well done, Mr. Williams."

If what they've done is hope to make it so no one cares if they're called racist anymore, thus giving cover for people who are actually racist since non-racists no longer bother to help enforce decent behavior because they only get called racist anyway, then, well done, NAACP.

ricpic said...My grandmother always served tea in a glass, or a gless as she put it. Tea is over for me because I was raised on a gless tea with a slice of her sponge cake in the kitchen of her ancient apartment on the first floor of the six story 1920's apartment house with the fifteen coats of white enamel paint on the walls and the whole weight of the building pressing down on us and the one window looking out on an inner courtyard with a Brooklyn tree of heaven straining for what light managed to reach it. Compared to that what do fancy shmancy teas have to offer me?

This is all incredibly hilarious. But, wait, it gets even more hilarious: one of those being expelled from the 'partiers is - in effect - this guy. Note also that Althouse's buddy Reynolds promoted the "Express", as did many others. They're all now - according to one faction - questionable.

@holdfast: yeah... I was just expanding on what I thought Althouse's joke was... I'm not a "tea partier" per-se; but I do support many of their goals (abstract as they may be)... so I'm, demographically speaking, one of those Americans "sympathetic" to the "tea party" (abstract as it may be)... I am not very sympathetic to the naacp or black panthers... which probably means I would be called racist by some short-sighted, brain-dead, ultra-p.c. libs; which would drive me further towards the tea party if only out of political self-preservation...

Synova anyone can talk about race all they want, and then anyone has a right to respond and even ask people to leave a "leaderless organization" like the Tea Party for the racist attitude expressed in the letter to Mr. Lincoln.

If what they've done is hope to make it so no one cares if they're called racist anymore, thus giving cover for people who are actually racist since non-racists no longer bother to help enforce decent behavior because they only get called racist anyway, then, well done, NAACP.

Scott said... When you can be expelled from a movement, it isn't a movement.

==========Incorrect. Most movements these days are netcentric, with multiple independent groups or actors - none following some "CEO of All Ideological Purity Control and Approver of All Movement Activities."

Calling bin Laden the "Mastermind of All Islamic Terror" who "must be brought to Justice" was laughable stupidity 9 years ago, and even worse now as the actual nature of Islamist extremists organizations, and organizing basis of individual terror actions shows there is no "Dr Evil" at work.

Jesse Jackson was never "Head Negro" directing each black person in America what to say or do.

The Fantasy of Saint Martin Luther King as Leader of All the Civil Rights Movement is a ridiculous proposition actually taught in school. Saint Martin was dependent on Jewish financiers, communists, and lawyers up in NYC for many of his marching orders as well as his funds, legal help, and group's internal management. On top of the NYC Jewish Left partially controlling his activities, he had several competing "Fellow Reverends" in his group and other civil rights groups did other actions and initiatives having no time or inclination to have any business with Saint Martin and his group.And outside the blacks and one group of Leftist Jewish activists - other groups that held no brook with MLK and didn't work with him existed in the NAACP, CORE, White community, black unions, black Muslims, native rights groups. As well as outside "regulators" like FBI that also sought to control membership, weed out the Jewish and black communists..etc.

The various "Tea Party" factions are as messy as the Civil Rights Movement. No one is the CEO, no way can ideological enforcement be exercised on their bad apples without a lot of aggravation - as was the case with Civil Rights groups.

The National Tea Party Federation will come to regret this decision. In fact, it is antithetical to that which they say they hold dear - The Constitution. As an American citizen, Williams is entitled to make his "satiric" comments and even his racially charged comments, and then we can all judge him accordingly.

On the contrary, Penny, nothing they did is antithetical to the Constitution.

The National Tea Party Federation is a group of private citizens, not government. They did not advocate using the government to silence him or punish him.

They heard Williams's comments, "judge[d] him accordingly" (as you suggested), and chose to disassociate themselves from him and his speech.